Vegetable and turkey wok
Originally uploaded by Manne.
Been home with a serious cold for two days now and certainly not feeling up for cooking. Thing is, I bought all these vegetables on Monday evening with a plan to cook a number of things for dinner and left overs lunch over the week, so had to do something with it.
Dug out this old Swedish cookery book called "Food in a wok" (link in Swedish) which has lots of dead simple and really quick recipes in it. Somehow, despite the little effort required, I am almost never disappointed with the results. One of my most cherished cookery books indeed.
Recipe does require you to have sherry at home, but who in their right mind doesn't? Besides, you should drink more sherry so as to make sure the supply of sherry barrels for maturing whiskey in doesn't dry up! We need a new generation of sherry drinkers!
Ingredients
Serves 2 hungry people or makes for some nice next day lunch left overs. Make it vegetarian by replacing the meat with tofu or quorn and use veggie stock? Can tofu or quorn be boiled to absorb flavour or would it just fall to pieces?
4 tbsp sherry
1 tsp sesame oil
3 tbsp oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 turkey fillets (or two breasts of chicken)
1/2 l chicken stock
1/2 broccoli head, broken up bite sized
1 romano pepper, coarsely chopped
1 leek, cut in circles 1 cm thick
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 tsp sugar
salt
black pepper
chilli pepper
paprika powder
penne pasta for two (or noodles...)
Recipe said to serve with noodles, of course, it being wok based cooking. I looked in my cupboards and found two packs of soba noodles BBE 25/3. Last year. So I went for the rather unconventional penne pasta option instead, which worked very well.
Method
Put the chicken stock to boil in a small pot. Add half the sherry, half the sesame oil, some salt and black pepper. Place the meat in the stock and bring back to boil. Let simmer under a lid for 15 minutes.
Once done, remove the meat and cut it to 1 cm wide strips. Keep about 1 dl of the stock in a cup, discard the rest.
Boil pasta (or noodles) according to instructions. Since you are to mix the pasta into the wok towards the end, depending on boiling time for the pasta you might want to put it to the boil while you do the rest of the recipe, or boil it towards the end if it only needs a few minutes. Either way.
Heat the wok to a medium heat, add the rest of the oils and chuck in the broccoli flowers and romano pepper. Fry while stirring until the broccoli goes a lovely bright green. Then add in the leek and garlic and keep frying while stirring vigorously for another minute or so.
Pour in the rest of the sherry, the soy sauce and sprinkle the sugar on top. Season with paprika powder and chilli pepper according to personal heat resistance abilities. Give it a stir. Add the stock you kept in the cup along with the meat and stir, let simmer for about a minute.
Lastly, fold in the pasta and let it all mellow together.
Serve immediately.
